Beck Storer brings invaluable experience to Master of Creative Industries

Award winning designer Beck Storer brings her passion for creativity and love of education to the Master of Creative Industries degree at Melbourne Polytechnic.

Beck Storer has returned to Melbourne Polytechnic and is teaching ‘Developing Creative Enterprises’ and ‘Project Design’. She’s thrilled to be back in the classroom and we’re thrilled to have her back

Beck loves what she does and values the importance of creativity in the world: ‘I want to share everything I know to other creatives to make them inspired and aspire to something that they maybe never thought was actually possible. The creative enterprise subject is ‘all about the artist’.

‘My role is to get students to look inwards rather than outwards, look towards their practice and start really thinking about how they're going to communicate themselves to the broader world.  I incorporate marketing practices, branding, positioning, marketing communication, but most importantly it’s really to give the students a moment to stop and think about who they are and what they stand for.’ 

Beck refers to her students her crew; ‘an eclectic bunch I’m privileged to hang out with’. Some have a bachelor’s degree and some are mid-career professionals looking for a new challenge. ‘We've had exceptional people in the program who have the most amazing careers in music or fine art or digital art, and they're wanting to have a space to be able to have a moment, find an opportunity to nurture their creativity and really focus on a major project or a major outcome and outlet. 

‘All the students have unique stories or have amazing abilities and craft. The reason why I wanted to come back is that, from my perspective as an industry creative, I'm blown away by the diversity of the amazing talent. I get so much inspiration from the crew. They're individual creatives wanting their next challenge and they’ve picked the appropriate space being Melbourne Polytechnic and the Master’s to do that.’

Through the ‘Project Design’ subject, students start thinking about how to create their own artistic statement or narrative for the major piece of work they need to produce over the 18 months of the Masters.

‘They're marinating their ideas and my job is to get them to think bigger, braver and bolder. It's probably the best Master’s program in Australia’ Beck says. ‘It's different, the calibre of the teaching and student talent creates fosters opportunities to let someone be able to craft and produce a project and cement their career – it’s truly inspirational,’ she says. 

Master of Creative Industries Head of Program Dr Adam Casey says a strength of the course is its interdisciplinary approach.

‘We take in creative practitioners of every kind; painters, projection artists, bloggers, curators, theatre makers,’ he says. 

‘Our program is a combination of academic skills and industry experience. At Melbourne Polytechnic Higher Education what we do well is we have a hands-on foundation, we integrate the best of Higher Education and bring them together with an end result of represent both the industry and  academic elements.’

‘Half of our program is catered towards entrepreneurship and enterprise, guiding students to maneuver  pitches, marketing, branding, design. The other half we take them through applied research’ and new and more integrated understandings of creative practice.  Ultimately, we are operating in a multimillion-dollar industry and we're teaching our students how to leverage this while still maintaining a meaningful engagement with their creative practice.’

Beck’s own practice is creative arts and events company The Cutaway, an award-winning studio that creates immersive visual experiences in the digital and public landscape. Combining her love for design, technology and craft, Beck’s work challenges the curious and presents visual stories that are compelling and memorable. She digs into the unique story of public spaces and uses her creativity to bring a visual narrative to the public. 

Beck won a prestigious gold A’Design International Award for her work at the new Metro train station under construction at the University of Melbourne. The brief was to make an unattractive 50-metre long gantry over the building site into a visually engaging space for pedestrians.

To produce the project titled ‘Pretty Little Things’, The Cutaway looked to research from University of Melbourne scientists and came up with ‘really cool abstract visual images that were all about the weird stuff they see under the microscope’. 

Find out more about our Master of Creative Industries.